


You've Got Starlight and Pretty Wishes

by indevan



Series: Rock Band AU [6]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Not Dates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 17:24:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11925654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: Krillin’s always been well-liked but no one ever likes him that way.  He’s always relegated to comic relief or the one no one ever sees romantically





	You've Got Starlight and Pretty Wishes

Krillin watches in fascination as Goku shoves the remains of the tortilla into his face.  He licks a stream of ranch dressing as it dribbles down the side of his hand.

“So...that was...eleven of those snack wraps from McDonalds,” he says, astonished.

He shrugs.

“Eh, most I’ve eaten in one sitting was fifteen.  When Taco Bell used to have that, like, twelve taco box, me and my brother would each go and get one each for dinner.”

Krillin shakes his head.  He shouldn’t be  _ too _ surprised.  When he and Goku were friends, back in elementary school, he was known as the kid who would eat anything for a dollar (“Dollar fifty if it’s not food”).

He’s happy that they’ve reconnected, even in this happenstance, unorthodox way.  Back in elementary school, Goku was his best friend.  He’s never been quite sure why they called him Goku back then but he seems to be alright with still being called it now.  Krillin can also ask him to help him out and asking Goku is somehow less embarrassing than asking any of his bandmates.

“So, why am I here again?” he asks, wiping his mouth with his wrist.

Krillin draws in a breath and says, “Well, I asked Lazuli if she wanted to hang out after the show, but I said it was like a  _ group _ thing so it was no pressure.”

Goku cocks his head to the side. “But you like her?”

He exhales in a great whoosh and nods, feeling miserable.  Lazuli is amazing.  She’s smart, gorgeous ,and plays throwback eighties synth better than anyone he’s ever heard.  The thing is, she would  _ never _ like him.  Krillin’s short and funny-looking and, sure, he’s alright at guitar but how can he even compare when there are players like Vegeta or Goku or even the kid from U6?

“So why not ask her out?”

“Because she doesn’t like me  _ like that _ and I don’t want to put any pressure on her that I like her.”

Krillin’s also rationalized that even if he’s certain that Lazuli will never have feelings for him, he still wants to be her friend.  She’s cool and now that her brother’s gone chasing after Apetail’s drummer, she’s been by herself a lot.

“You probably should have gotten Yamcha or, uh, that guy with the beanie from your band.”

He shakes his head.

“Tien wouldn’t and...well, I thought Yamcha would laugh at me.”

“Over being your buffer?”

Krillin shrugs. “I guess?”

Goku slaps his chest with one hand and grins broadly.

“Well, never fear, Krillin.  I am here to make things less awkward!”

He has to laugh.  That was something he remembered, too.  Goku was always making him laugh when he wasn’t worrying him because he decided to skateboard in the wash during flash flood season or walk on his hands on top of an eight foot chain link fence.

He spots Lazuli coming towards them from the darkness.  She’s wearing a fuzzy jacket that she’s holding around herself.  When she reaches them, Krillin sees her tuck some hair behind one ear.

“Hey.”

Her greeting is blunt but Krillin thinks he can detect a little bit of warmth.  She did, after all, agree to hang out with them.

“You know Kakarrot, right?” He’ll always be Goku to him, but he figures referring to him as Kakarrot to everyone else is just easier.

Lazuli looks at him and says, “He got electrocuted at our first show.”

Goku gives a lopsided grin.

“Well, at least she’s not talking about the trashcan incident,” he says in a cheery voice.

Lazuli curls her lip a little and Krillin looks between them.  He wonders if he’ll have to play moderator--he’s used to it, anyway.  Ever since Tien and Yamcha broke up, he’s been the peacemaker in the group, always there to defuse fights.

“You’ll never live that down,” she says.

Goku nods, still smiling. “Yeah.  I bet it’ll be written on my tombstone.  ‘Here Lies Kakarrot Son: He Once Peed in a Trashcan.’”

Krillin can’t help himself.

“‘Once,’” he says, making finger-quotes as he says it.

Lazuli cracks a small smile and he feels his heart soar.  Before he can do something embarrassing like start blushing, he turns to Goku.

“You ready?”

\--

They end up at Waffle House because it’s nearby and it’s open.  Krillin’s never been in one before and everything is yellow, brown, and somehow wet.  The lights are bright and everything has a layer of sticky syrup over it.  Goku seems right at home.

“I love this place,” he says excitedly. “I almost got banned from the one near me.”

Lazuli gives Krillin an amused look and he smiles back at her.

“How did that happen?” he asks.

Goku’s eyes light up and he hops up to perch on the hard, plasticine booth like a gargoyle.

“Well.  You remember 4loko right?  That alcohol with caffeine in it or whatever?” At their nods, he continues. “So, they kinda banned the original recipe but one night we were super bored so me and Vegeta decided we were gonna recreate it.  So we mixed malt liquor, vodka, Kool-Aid mix, and this kind of caffeine pill together.”

Krillin can already imagine where this story is going and he chances a glance at Lazuli.  She still looks amused, her hands fisted under her chin.

“So we drank way too much of it and honestly I don’t remember much of that night.  I do know that we almost died and, like, y’ever see  _ Footloose? _  Well, there’s this scene where the girl stands between two cars while they’re driving?”

Krillin widens his eyes. “You did that?”

He waves a hand. “Nah, but Vegeta did.  I took all my clothes off and scaled the Waffle House sign while singing the theme from  _ Rocky. _  Totally different.”

Lazuli’s lips curve up again. “I’m so sure.”

Krillin shakes his head.

“So that got you banned from Waffle House?”

“No, it  _ almost _ got me banned.  The manager said it still didn’t rank in the top ten things she’d seen happen at Waffle House so I got a pass.”

For a moment, Krillin wonders what his life would have been like if his dad hadn’t gotten a new job and he hadn’t moved.  If he had stayed friends with Goku.  Would he have been there, trying to get him down from that sign?

The thoughts are distracting, which is good because he’s suddenly realized how close Lazuli is to him in the booth--close enough to smell the detergent on her clothes--and he feels a blush creep up his neck.  He tries to ignore it.  Krillin’s always been well-liked but no one ever likes him that way.  He’s always relegated to comic relief or the one no one ever sees romantically.  It gets him down but he prefers it to the alternative, which is not having any friends at all.  The thing is that Lazuli is the first girl he’s liked in a while but he figures it’ll end up like any of his other crushes.

The server comes to take their order and, not feeling hungry, Krillin just gets a cup of coffee.

“Cream, no sugar,” he says.

“Me too,” Lazuli says, a bit too much.

They share a look at and she glances away, kind of a sour look on her face.  Twisting her mouth to the side, she tucks hair behind her ear.

“I’ll have that All-Star combo thingy,” Goku says, “Eggs over easy and bacon please.”

Krillin looks at that item on the menu and widens his eyes at the amount of food.  Can he even all that after eleven of those McDonalds snack wrap things?

“You’ve gotta be a bottomless pit.”

Kakarrot cocks his head to the side in confusion again. “Really?  I mean, all of us eat like that.  Last time we came here on the tour, there wasn’t enough room on the table for our orders.”

Krillin shakes his head with laughter.  Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Lazuli and is surprised to see she’s looking at him with an unreadable expression on her face.

\--

It becomes a routine for the three of them to hang out after shows.  There are moments where he think that Lazuli might maybe like him back but he pushes them away.  He’s glad there’s Goku as a buffer, though, because she seems less guarded than she does usually.  She’ll laugh and smile and, whenever she does, she puts her hand over her mouth as if she’s not allowed.  He wants to ask her why but it’s none of his business.  Instead, he just feels good whenever he makes her laugh.

They grow closer as the tour progresses and he’s glad.  He feels like each night, they learn a little more about each other (always with Goku there to act as a buffer so it’ll never become that weird date-not-a-date dynamic).  He watches Sadistic Dance finish their set tonight.  They’re ending it with a cover of “Your Woman” by White Town.  Lapis’s voice is haunting but he watches her at her synthesizer.  When Lazuli plays or sings along with her brother, her eyes are closed and, when she isn’t singing, she bites her lip.  He’s heard rumblings from King Kai that he’s going to have Apetail close out shows to curtail their more show-stopping antics but, for now, the night closes with Sadistic Dance.

He waits for Lazuli behind the venue where all the cars and the rumbling, dilapidated tour bus wait.  Fans are milling around and he sees this girl he had seen at one of their previous shows, Maron, hanging around.  He had talked to her for a little bit and she’d seemed cool if a bit ditzy.  Krillin had had no idea that she was following the tour.

When she spots him, she waves and he shyly waves back.  Before he can think about going over to her, he sees her toss some shiny, blue hair over her shoulder and turn back to whoever she was talking to.  He drops his arm and sighs.  To make matters more awkward, Goku’s nearby her so he has to walk in that direction anyway.  He approaches the small group and he realizes belatedly that Goku’s on the phone.

“No, no, I just finished playing.  I wasn’t sleeping--promise...aw, it’s okay.”

He stands there with no choice but to awkwardly hover by Maron as she talks to Vegeta.  He isn’t much taller than Krillin is but with his sharp, pointed features, he’s probably more attractive.  And he has nipple rings--Krillin can’t compete with pierced nipples.  Maron waves to him again but her attention is quickly turned away once more.

“Hold on, you’ve got something right here.”

She reaches out and swipes her thumb near Vegeta’s mouth.

“You had a spot of disco dust there and it was bugging me.”

Without hesitation, she replaces her thumb with her lips and Krillin feels suddenly intrusive.  Goku’s still on the phone but he’s the far less awkward option.  He isn’t bothered by it.  It’s not like he and Maron were dating or had even done anything.  It’s the concept of being next to two people who are making out.  He feels like he shouldn’t be here.  Thankfully, after a bit of spit-swapping, the two of them disappear into the back of Apetail’s van.  Krillin exhales in relief.

He spots a flash of white that signals Lazuli’s blonde hair and he waves her over.  She gives a small sort of smile as she approaches.  Her face is flushed and sweaty from the stage lights.

“My brother is making that one’s brother watch Twin Peaks in the motel so I’m free,” she says.

She always gives some kind of excuse or reason for her to hang out with them.  Krillin’s mostly figured out at this point that she convinces herself that it’s because of these reasons and not because she really likes hanging out with them.

“Hold on, baby, okay?”

Goku pulls the phone from his ear and puts his hand over the bottom of it to cover the mouthpiece.

“Hey, so Gohan’s sick and can’t sleep so he wants to talk to me.  I’m just gonna go to the hotel room tonight.  Sorry.”

Immediately, Krillin’s skin prickles.  He looks at Lazuli but he can’t read her expression.  They’ve never hung out alone--he doesn’t know what to  _ do _ without a buffer.  He swallows nervously but what can he do?  Beg Goku not to stay on the phone with his sick kid?  So he just nods and waves to him as he heads over to the van.

“Geta, you almost done pretending you’re over Bulma by sleeping with someone who sorta looks like her?  We gotta go.” He puts the phone back to his ear. “No, GoGo, daddy’s still here.”

He turns to Lazuli and chances a nervous smile.

“Um.  So...where do you want to go?”

Lazuli looks around at everyone standing around and says, “Let’s walk.”

They have at least another hour until everyone decides to finally leave.  Usually they’ll drive in the van that Sadistic Dance has and take it back to the motel where they’re staying.  She’s never asked him just to walk.  Krillin nods.

“Cool!  Great!  I love walking!”

He cringes at his own voice.  Why is it the second his buffer is gone, he sounds like a blathering idiot?  To his surprise, Lazuli gives a small laugh.

“Yeah.”

She tucks her hair behind her ear and they set off.  Krilling jams his hands in his pockets as they walk, trying to think of something to talk about.  His ears are still ringing from the show and the night seems to buzz.  It’s getting chillier but he has no concept of time to know what day or even what month it is.  This tour has been a weird sort of time capsule for them all.

“Who’s Gohan?” Lazuli asks once they’re a good distance away.

“Oh!  Uh, that’s Goku--er--Kakarrot’s son,” he says. “He’s four.”

He isn’t sure why his age is relevant but Lazuli gives him a perplexed look.

“He has a kid?” she demands.  Her voice is louder than usual and it makes him laugh despite himself.

“Yeah, that was my reaction, too.  Then again, the last time I saw him before this tour, we were nine.”

Lazuli doesn’t speak for a moment and they stop at a crosswalk.  The city they’re in feels weirdly deserted and it’s nighttime but he doesn’t know the actual hour.  It gives him the feeling of being stranded on some alien planet.

“When I was nine, my brother and I used to switch places to confuse our parents and our teacher,” she says after a moment. “We were both blonde then so it was easier.”

“Not even your parents could tell you apart?”

She shakes her head. “No.  They’re not very good parents.”

She smiles a little as she says it and he wonders what she means by that.

“Oh, um.  Look,the light’s changed!”

They cross the street in silence and it’s almost another block before she speaks.

“Thanks for not bugging me about it,” she says. “So many other people always ask what we went through or what our parents were like and it’s none of their business.”

“It’s not,” he agrees.

For some reason, it reminds him of when he was a kid and would go over to Goku’s house.  Once, his big brother was walking them home after school and some kid taunted him for hanging out with “trailer trash” and “did you hear about their parents?” getting into their home life and business.  He remembers how Raditz had made a fist and thrust it up under the kid’s ribcage, once, and said “Call us trailer trash one more time.”  Even then, Krillin didn’t understand why the other kids thought it was any of their business.

“I don’t get you,” she says.

They come to stop outside a darkened store front.  It has to be some kind of clothing store because he can see the shadowy outlines of mannequins in the windows.  Krillin shudders despite himself--it’s more than a little bit creepy.

“What don’t you get?” he asks.

“You just like hanging out,” she says.

“I mean, yeah.  You’re, uh, cool.  I want to be friends.”

“We  _ are _ friends.”

_ Are we? _

He doesn’t ask out loud.  He’s learned that Lazuli doesn’t like repeating herself.

“But guys don’t...want to be my friend,” she sighs impatiently. “They always went after me and Lapis because they wanted to bed ‘hot twins’ like we’d ever want to be in bed together.”

She makes a face of disgust and Krillin nods along.  That’s got to be tiresome.

“But you do.” She pauses again. “And you make me laugh.”

“I try.”

God, he needs better material.  Lazuli turns and looks at the mannequins.

“I wonder if they have that in my size,” she says to herself.

Krillin keeps his hands in his pocket, not sure what to say.  Lazuli isn’t candid very often.

“I’m glad Kakarrot couldn’t join us tonight,” she says, still looking at their silent, motionless, very creepy audience. “I wanted to spend time with you alone.”

“Why?”

She sighs and leans against the storefront window.

“Because I like you,” she says, “but you have been nothing but funny and nice and…”

She shrugs and makes a face at her own, night-filled reflection.

“And?”

He swallows.  This has never happened before.

“You just want to be friends.”

Krillin rolls his lips in and tries to think of something to say.

“I don’t.” He cringes. “I mean.  I like you, too.  I just figured--well, no one likes me so I was like ‘I just want to be her friend if nothing else.’”

He wishes he had better material.  Lazuli laughs and he likes it and he likes it especially when he’s the reason that she’s laughing.

“So we were both playing this,” she says.  She eases up off of the window and hugs her coat tightly around her. “Hey, so...do you want to go to our motel room and interrupt my brother’s not-date?”

Krillin finds himself grinning. “Sure.”

Lazuli holds her hand out and he hesitates for a moment before taking it.


End file.
